Mark of the Beast
by blue-eyed-blonde12
Summary: Rose wants to know about her Daddy's scarred arms. Perhaps she can weasel the truth out of him, and get a few war stories, too.


Disclaimer: Yeah, I wish. The magical world of Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.

A line of this just popped into my head, and I desperately wanted to write it.

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My mum says I'm too big to sit on Daddy's lap anymore. Daddy says she's wrong and that I can sit on his lap anytime I want to. At thirteen, I suspect that I _am_ a bit heavy for him, but Daddy never complains.

Back from Hogwarts for the summer holidays, I decide I want a war story. Mum doesn't like me to hear them, but Daddy and Uncle Harry think that "all of the kids" should know the truth, not the glossed and polished version the textbooks tell.

Daddy sits in his favorite armchair by the fire, the flames making his red hair glint like dying embers. I climb into his lap and hang my arms around his neck.

"Tell me a story, Dad."

"What do you want to hear?"

"Tell me how you got the scars on your arms. Please?"

Daddy once said that he'd told me, but I was apparently too little to remember. I've always wondered where he'd gotten the little identical marks, less than an inch long, all up his arms.

"Rosie, that's three stories, not one."

"So tell them all. Please, Daddy?" I pout. I know that I'm going to win this argument. He knows it too.

"Alright, then. See these, the twisting ones here? A brain attacked me."

"Excuse me? A _brain_ attacked you?"

He nods. "Department of Mysteries, my fifth year. I don't know what purpose they served, but I was in some sort of fit from a Death Eater's spell, and me being me, I summoned one." He shudders. "It grew these tentacle things that wrapped themselves around me."

"That's awful. And disgusting."

"And I got these tiny marks in sixth year, courtesy of your mum."

"Mum did that to you?! How? Did she attack you with a knife, or what?" I can't imagine my mother capable of physically hurting Dad, she loves him too much.

"No, Rosie. These were my own fault. You see, sixth year was a very hard year on your mum and me, and I'm mostly to blame for it. I had started going out with a girl named Lavender Brown, simply because she'd say yes. Our 'relationship' started one night after a Quidditch game that Gryffindor had won. Lavender kissed me. No reason at all. And I kissed her back." Daddy grimaces and looks around. I suppose he's looking for Mum.

"Anyway, Lavender convinced me to go to an empty classroom. It turned out not to be so empty. Harry had been talking to your mum when we came in. And the next thing I know, your mum charmed these bloody yellow birds she had conjured to attack me. Bloody things pecked me good and hard. And I deserved it."

"Whoa. Mum never mentioned that. Why did you deserve that?"

"Because I only dated Lavender to make your mum jealous. I was a complete arse back then."

"Was? Oh, please Ron, you still are." My mum enters the sitting room. I see the way they look at each other. It's obvious that they're as much in love now as they were twenty-something years ago.

"I was just about to tell Rosie about this scar. But you'd be the better teller of that tale, wouldn't you, Hermione?" Daddy points to a really big mark on his left upper arm; it looks like a dog bite, but much cleaner.

Mum sighs. "I suppose I would be." She looks at me. "Your uncle, dad and I were Disapparating from the Ministry. We'd broken in to get something important, you see. They found out about us intruding, and we had to run for it. So as we Disapparated, a Death Eater grabbed me, and I very nearly took him with us. Instead, I managed to shake him off at Grimmauld Place, while we ended up in the woods. Your dad…wasn't quite right. I…I had Splinched him." I can see the shame in her eyes, shame that hasn't died over the years. She looks at Daddy, then back at me.

"He doesn't remember this, Rose. Ron, Harry and I didn't tell you this, but it looked like someone had taken a razor to your arm and scooped away the skin. It was one of the scariest things I'd ever seen."

I shudder. "That's revolting." Mum nods.

"We all got more than a few scars from the war time." Mum fingers the thin raised line on her neck. No one will tell me where she got it. Daddy always gets this angry look on his face when I ask, Uncle Harry usually looks like he's glaring at some memory, and Mum's eyes fill up with tears.

I guess some people would prefer clear, unmarked skin to wear. But I like the scars. They tell stories and secrets. And they're the proof my family wears to say that the textbooks skate over the real horrors of battle.

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That was very much me rambling because I can't finish a story very well. Or write a story very well, for that matter. Oh well. Reviews would be nice, but I won't beg.


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